Demon Accords 8: College Arcane (5 page)

“This is most definitely within our skill
set, Chris,” she told him.

“Yeah, if you can leave it with us, we should
be able to find some different ways to counter it,” I said, ideas
already running through my head.

“Great. I can’t tell you how important this
is to me,” he said.

“Or the world,” Caeco muttered under her
breath. He heard her but let it pass without comment.

“Now the last thing is this: The book is
gone. Darkest Sorrow. It disappeared from where we hid it and we
don’t know who took it.”

“Where did you store it?” I asked.

“The bottom of the East River, in an armored
box that was chained to the river bottom and booby trapped to
explode if tampered with.”

“Salt water in the East River?” I asked.

“Yes, we thought it would mask the book’s
presence.”

“It should have. Was the armored box
opened?”

“It was just gone, explosives and all.”

“Then it may have been the book itself that
did it,” I said.

“Huh? How could a book move itself and a
chained metal and plastic box?”

“How could a necklace slice a SWAT truck in
half? Chris, that book has power and the damned thing feels like
it’s self-aware or something. It wanted me to go to it and pick it
up when you had it our place. It was like a pressure or something.
Who knows what it could do.”

“Would you know if it got near you?” he
asked.

“I would definitely feel it. But I’m not sure
that would even be necessary,” I said. He raised both eyebrows and
waited. “I think if I could feel it, then it would be able to feel
me and, well, I think it would call out to me.”

“Because it wants you to use it?”

“Because it wants the most powerful witch or
warlock it could find to use it. If it’s in the hands of a more
powerful witch than me, maybe not.”

Caeco snorted. “Like that’s gonna happen, Mr.
Modesty.”

“Anyway, it’s not likely to appear in
Burlington, but if it does, I’ll call you first,” I said.

“Okay. I’ll be checking in periodically to
see how this thing is going,” he said, waving at the building
around us. “And you two think you can come up with options for
those things?” he asked, pointing at the collar in Caeco’s
hand.

“I’m certain of that,” I said, which I was.
Between her nanites and my Craft, we’d crack it.

“Good. I lost my first family because I was
helpless. I almost lost my second family because I couldn’t find a
way to bypass that technology. I
will
not be helpless
again,” he said through clenched teeth. I think if it had been
darker, his eyes might have actually glowed.
Pissed? Whole new
definition of the word pissed.

He said goodnight and we headed back to our
rooms. The apartment door closed behind us and we entered the
stairwell.

“We’ll have to work hard to get as good an
offer as possible from Oracle,” Caeco mused.

“Huh? Earth to Caeco, we don’t want to work
for Oracle. We want to work for the
real
good guys,
right?”

“Of course, but Chris as much as implied that
Demidova Corp would beat any other offer. We just want to make sure
they have a little competition,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Wow, you
are
devious,” I said
admiringly.

“I was
built
to be devious, as well as
brilliant, deadly, and attractive,” she said, smirking.

“And oh, so modest,” I said.

“Bah, what is this modesty you speak of? It
serves no purpose,” she said, attempting some foreign accent.

“That was horrible, but almost funny. Be
careful… you might actually develop a sense of humor,” I
warned.

“You decroatded piece of crap. I have all
kinds of humor,” she said, punching my shoulder and then bounding
up four stairs in one leap.

“
Napoleon Dynamite
? You’re quoting
Napoleon Dynamite
? Who
are
you?” I asked, chasing
after her but falling behind despite my longer legs.

Chapter 5

We dropped off the collar in Caeco’s room,
which was three rooms down the hall from mine. Aunt Ash and Dr.
Jensen had both raised eyebrows when we discovered how close our
rooms were, but oddly, neither said a word.

We agreed that she should have first chance
to inspect the collar and see what she could read off it before I
did the same. I had a few ideas, as I’m sure she did.

“I wonder where the others are?” I asked.

She locked her door with one hand while the
other pushed her highlighted brown hair away from her ear to
listen. After a second, she pointed further down the long hallway
and we began to walk.

“We don’t have to hang out with them, you
know? They’re gonna ask a lot of questions,” I said.

“If I learned anything from my short high
school experience, it’s that making friends is important. Also, a
social hierarchy is already forming as we speak and we need to have
our own place in it, with allies.”

“Wow, again, who are you and what have you
done with the independent combat operator that I first met?” I
asked.

“Silly warlock, the history of warfare and
conflict has always favored those with allies. This I have known
since my first war game. Plus we promised Chris,” she said,
stopping in front of a door with the names Ashley and Ariel on
it.

Ashley opened it at my knock. “About time. We
were wondering what was keeping you,” she said, gesturing us into
the room.

It was immediately clear whose side was
whose. One half was decorated in soft pastels with an inordinate
number of stuffed animals—at least for a college dorm. Posters
depicting polar bears and fair trade expos were artistically
displayed on the bare walls. It seemed very Ariel.

The other side favored primary colors, mostly
blues and greens, with pictures of both the men’s and women’s
Olympic soccer teams and an eye-catching poster of a beautifully
forged folded-steel bowie knife crossed over a one-piece metal
tomahawk under the title Bear Mountain Blades. Ashley’s space.

“Whoa, nice craftsmanship,” Caeco said, drawn
instantly to the poster.

“Ashley’s dad makes them,” Jetta said from
her position in the big puffy pink beanbag chair at the end of
Ariel’s bed. Mack was sitting next to her cross-legged on the floor
with a MacBook open on his lap, and Ariel was lying back across her
bed.

“Does he take commissions?” Caeco asked
Ashley, not taking her eyes off the poster.

“I’m first… when I can get the money
together,” Jetta said.

“He hasn’t made anything in a while, but I
think he’s gonna crank up the forge again, at least while I’m at
college. My home is only a couple of hours from here,” Ashley said.
“We can ask him tomorrow. He’s staying overnight at the Marriott
downtown and he was going to take Ariel and I up the hill tomorrow
to get our books and find our classrooms.”

“He does beautiful work,” Caeco said, maybe a
touch awestruck. Jetta jumped up and joined her in examining the
poster.

“Look—is that silver folded in or nickel, do
you think?” Jetta asked Caeco.

“Hard to tell,” Caeco answered, leaning
close. Yup, these two were gonna get along fine.

“So you’re hunters?” I asked Mack, which
caused Jetta to spin around.

“So you’re a warlock?” she fired back before
her brother could answer.

“Perhaps we can all have a seat and maybe
explain our backgrounds,” Mack said, more to his volatile sister
than to me. Ashley and Ariel were nodding, watching Jetta
warily.

“Sure,” I said, dropping down next to Mack,
sitting cross-legged.

“All four of you… no all
five
of you
have met Chris Gordon before,” Ashley said, making it a statement.
“And he just met with the two of you, didn’t he?”

“Yeah. He’s staying with Gina Velasquez. Her
daughter is his goddaughter,” I said.

“The one he bombed New Hampshire over?”
Ashley asked.

“Yeah,” I said. They all waited for me to go
on. I glanced at Caeco and got a small nod to go ahead, but her
narrowed eyes told me to be judicious.

“So the people that kidnapped Toni had also
taken the two of us into custody,” I began.

“Why?” Jetta interjected.

“Because Caeco’s mom used to work for them
and because I was helping her try to stay away from them,” I said,
thinking it was way, way too early for the full story.

“So you were what? Running from them?” Ashley
directed at Caeco, who just looked at her with a level
expression.

“Yes,” Caeco finally answered, leaving Ashley
looking slightly uncomfortable.

“Annywaay,” I said, gathering everyone’s
attention, “They brought Toni in and put her in a cell between
Caeco and I. Then Chris and Tanya and Awasos, which is the big
bear-wolf—” They all nodded, having seen the television and not
been under rocks lately “—arrived and things went crazy. They sent
an agent in to hold Toni hostage and we… stopped her,” I finished
with a shrug.

“You two stopped an AIR agent?” Ariel asked,
eyes wide. “Just the two of you?”

“Yeah, what, you don’t believe me? I’ll call
Chris if you want?” I asked, annoyed at her disbelief.

“No, no, no, that’s fine. It’s just I’ve seen
AIR agents before and I doubt they would send a weak one to guard
an important hostage, that’s all,” Ariel said quickly.

“That’s right, you’ve worked for Oracle
before, haven’t you?” Caeco asked

“She puts the oracle in Oracle,” Ashley
interjected.

“Right, precognition. How’s that work out?” I
asked.

“I’m pretty good at certain events, like
portal openings and demon outbreaks. Not so good at winning the
lottery or anything,” she said shyly.

“Wait, I’m still stuck on the two of you
beating a trained assassin,” Jetta commented.

“I thought warlocks were pushovers?”

Another glance at Caeco, catching her minute
headshake. “That’s the stereotype,” I agreed. “But any witch has
some skills, and Caeco’s kung fu is very strong.”

Jetta’s head snapped around to Caeco. “You
know kung fu?”

My deadly girl shrugged and nodded, but I
wanted the focus off me. “—and jiu-jitsu, karate, escrima,
penjat-silat, aikido, muay tai, and wing chun,” I offered, earning
myself a glare from Caeco.

“No way? Will you teach me?” Jetta asked,
breathless. Both Ariel and Ashley leaned forward, almost
simultaneously saying, “Me too.”

“I thought you were hunters?” Caeco asked
Jetta and Mack, confused by all the martial arts enthusiasm.

“We are, but we’ve never had any formal fight
training,” Mack answered.

“If we have free time, I guess we could do
some classes,” she said, then whipped her head around to me, “but
you’re teaching the Krav Maga portions.”

To the others, she explained. “Mr. Beanpole
here has been instructing Krav Maga for several years now.”

“What’s Krav Maga?” Ariel asked.

“Israeli army self-defense,” Ashley said,
then went on at our questioning expressions, “What? My dad has
studied a lot of martial arts too and shown me some. But I want to
learn more.”

“We can start tomorrow, after everyone gets
their books and schedules figured out,” Caeco said. “But
understand, I believe Mr. Jenks will be teaching us some skills as
well.”

Amid the excitement, I realized we had
forgotten a topic.

“So just what do you two hunt?” I asked Jetta
and Mack.

They exchanged a glance of their own before
Mack turned back to the group.

“A couple of years ago, our parents went to
the far edge of our property where we had a little cabin, for a
weekend. They would do little getaways like that because our horse
farm kept them fully occupied and we could radio them if there was
a problem. Jetta and I were both old enough to handle the horses
and our uncle was close by if we needed him.

“They didn’t come back on Monday, so we
called Uncle Pete and we all rode out to the cabin. It was torn to
shreds, they were torn to shreds, and Uncle Pete knew what had done
it.”

“Werewolves?” Arial guessed.

“Yeah, apparently they have lived in the
Tennessee Mountains for generations and he was aware that a pack
had occasionally traveled through our territory. But they never
bothered humans and never really came near our property before.
This group was different. All the tracks were big, so it was just
the males. We helped him track them down. This pack was fucked up,
like a bad biker gang or something. They were all criminals,
treated their women like shit, and liked to hunt humans. Uncle Pete
said that wasn’t how the other weres he had known of had been. So
we hunted them, one by one. Pete helped us with the first couple
but then he had a heart attack and passed on. So we went on by
ourselves. Wiped out almost the whole pack. Forced them to run
south to North Carolina and join another pack. But the cops and FBI
got involved and then the Alpha of the pack we were hunting caught
us and was going to kill us in front of the new pack at some kind
of dinner party. That brother–sister wolf team that’s here was
there, as well as that boy Matt who was sitting down below us
today. And the pale girl who I think is named Katrina. But anyway,
Chris intervened. Beat the piss out of a fully Changed werewolf
without breaking a sweat. Then the FBI showed up to arrest us, but
the other Alpha, of the North Carolina pack, sent his attorney with
us and there wasn’t any evidence and so we went free. Chris got
shot that same night, but the supermodel werewolf that was in DC
with him reminded him about us and here we are.”